Comparisons among common methods of calculating stellar masses and star formation rates for normal galaxies

doi:10.7523/j.ucas.2022.052

Abstract

Abstract: Stellar mass and star formation rate are essential properties of galaxies. They are also an important basis for understanding the evolution of baryonic matter distribution on the cosmic time scale. Astronomers have developed many methods to estimate the stellar mass and star formation rate of a single galaxy using multi-waveband data. This paper evaluates the variations of the results from different stellar mass and star formation rate estimation methods using multi-wavelength sky survey data of a sample of normal galaxies from the Salon Digital Sky Survey. Our study shows that the results of various stellar mass estimation methods are not significantly different. However, the degree of deviation between the estimated star formation rates from different methods is significant and critical. Therefore, to avoid inaccurate interpretation caused by the discrepancy of different estimation methods, a similar observation data set and the same star formation rate estimation method should be used for each galaxy when comparing star formation rates between galaxies or analyzing star formation rates of a large galaxy sample.

Key words: galaxies, stellar mass, star formation rate, galaxy evolution

CLC Number:

P157.9

LI Cuihuan, LI Guodong, TSAI Chao-Wei, DANZENG Luobu. Comparisons among common methods of calculating stellar masses and star formation rates for normal galaxies[J]. Journal of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2024, 41(3): 312-320.

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